Imi Knoebel Meets Fernand Léger

On the invitation of the Fernand Léger National Museum in Biot, Imi Knoebel has set up an exhibition in dialogue with Fernand Léger, a pioneer of modern art.

Knoebel first encountered Léger’s work in 1979 when invited to realize a large-scale installation at the Museum of Fine Arts in Winterthur. Structured around notions of order and chaos, Genter Raum consists of construction materials and painted panels, randomly placed on the floor or carefully arranged on the walls. Knoebel only kept one reference to art history from the museum’s collection: Still Life (1927) by Fernand Léger to achieve what is now considered a key work in his career.

For this new exhibition, Knoebel has chosen to focus on the ceramics that Léger made at the end of his life in Biot.

These later glazed terracottas match Léger’s new attempt to overcome the planarity of painting. The enamelled reliefs play with volume, contrast and colour. Over the course of summer 2016, Imi Knoebel took inspiration from these concepts to create new paintings, which will be displayed for the first time as part of this exhibition.

An earlier work, Ort-Mennige (2012) is also presented on this occasion. Articulated around three panels, it offers visitors the opportunity to immerse themselves into a well-defined coloured space.

http://musees-nationaux-alpesmaritimes.fr/fleger/evenement/l-imi-knoebel-fernand-leger-une-rencontre